Thread: Looking to understand stropping

You have a 12K hone to sharpen the edge and a strop.

The strop will not sharpen an edge but will improve the edge.
A 12K hone like the Naniwa 12000 grit will give you a very nice edge.

Use a straight edge to inspect your hone for high and low spots.
Hone more on the high spots so the hone stays flat. If you have
something to flatten the hone consider it.

Hone smoothly with light strokes. It helps to use a marker like a "Sharpie" to
paint the edge and see if the hone is touching the razor all the way to the cutting
edge. That area is less than a millimeter on many razors. The important bit
is only the cutting edge.

Strop smoothly with the same or less weight than you used on the hone.
On a 12K hone you can use stropping strokes.

After honing there may or may not be a near invisible wire edge (burr) that
a strop will remove. A burr will often start a face cut so it needs to be wiped off.

After shaving the micro deformations of the cutting edge can be pulled out
straight and aligned. Minor oxidation will also be wiped off and the surface
made cleaner and smoother.

A hanging strop should only flex a bit. Lighten the weight of the razor or
pull tighter. The small flex concentrates the strop contact on the edge so
a light touch is best. A heavy touch will bend and roll the edge. The idea is
that the edge is dragged or pulled across the leather.

Leather on wood paddle strops do not flex but use the same pressure (almost none)
and the same smooth calm strokes.

When stropping think about smoothing a wrinkle from the edge of crumpled aluminum
foil or wet paper. If you push it crumples worse, if your drag your finger pull (tension) it will smooth.
You can drag wet paper over the surface of water and it will smooth out.

Speed is not needed for stropping. Smooth the right answer.
Set the blade down spine first lay the razor flat and move smoothly. Stop
lift the edge up and over and pull in the opposite direction. The spine
can stay in contact with the razor the whole time.

A professional barber might strop quickly but for him time is money
and he has had a lot of practice. After a year of nice smooth strokes
you will find they are quick enough. The time it takes for lather to
soften whiskers is about the time it takes to correctly strop a razor smoothly.
Refresh the lather and then apply razor to you face.